IIT Kharagpur to expand its seats

KHARGPUR: Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur is all set to increase its total seats from 8,000 to 20,000 by the year 2020 at a total investment of around Rs 1,800 crore.

The premier technology institute was also looking at increasing the percentage of PhDs to 30 per cent from current 15 per cent to focus on research.

Talking to reporters after the 55th convocation of the institute, chairman of the board of governors B Muthuraman said the expansion would be done in two phases.

The first phase envisages increasing intake to 11,000 by 2011-12, while the second phase includes enhancing seats to 20,000 at an additional investment of about Rs 1,000 crore.

The institute was also looking at setting up a medical college and a hospital with a capacity of 300-750 beds.

"The hospital will come up in PPP model. We are currently in talks with the University of California. A memorandum of understanding would be signed on August 18 in this regard," Damodar Acharya, director IIT, Kharagpur said.

On sponsored research projects, Muthuraman said about Rs 170 crore of such projects were bagged by the institute from several international companies like Intel, GM and Microsoft.